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The Longest Journey

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The Longest Journey
The Longest Journey cover
Developers
Funcom
Engines
Stark[1][2]
Release dates
Windows November 19, 1999
Reception
Metacritic 91
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase
Modes Singleplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives Cinematic camera
Controls Point and select
Genres Adventure
Art styles Realistic, Pre-rendered graphics
Themes Europe, Sci-fi, Fantasy, Medieval
Series The Longest Journey
The Longest Journey on HowLongToBeat
The Longest Journey on IGDB
The Longest Journey guide on StrategyWiki
The Longest Journey on MobyGames
The Longest Journey on Wikipedia
The Longest Journey
The Longest Journey 1999
Dreamfall: The Longest Journey 2006
Dreamfall Chapters 2014

The Longest Journey is a singleplayer cinematic camera adventure game in the The Longest Journey series.

General information

Official forums
Official forums support section
GOG.com Community Discussions for game series
GOG.com Support Page
Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
DRM-free
Windows
GamersGate
Icon overlay.png
Windows
GOG.com
DRM-free
v1.42; includes manual, wallpapers, guide, soundtrack, avatars, and artwork
Windows
Green Man Gaming
Icon overlay.png
Windows
Humble Store
Icon overlay.png
Windows
Steam
Icon overlay.png
v1.61
Windows
Gamesplanet logo.svg (unavailable)
Icon overlay.png
Windows
Demos are available from Steam and ScummVM.

Essential improvements

Patches

Patch 1.61 adds an external configuration tool along with some bug fixes. This patch is the latest for 2CD/DVD releases only.
The latest patch for 4CD releases is Build 142.
The Steam version already includes this patch.
The only problem is the lack of character encoding other than the English version.

Peixoto's patch

Allows high resolution and super sampling anti aliasing
Fixes the white square over the quit game dialog
Works with the GOG and DVD versions, but not with the original 3 CDs version

ScummVM

The game can be run with ScummVM regular builds as of October 2021.[3]

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows %APPDATA%\Funcom\TLJ
<path-to-game>\[Note 1]
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/6310/pfx/[Note 2]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows %APPDATA%\Funcom\TLJ
<path-to-game>\Save[Note 1]
%APPDATA%\The Longest Journey\Save
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/6310/pfx/[Note 2]
Save game data location can be changed, see change save game data location.

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud
ScummVM 2.1+ supports cloud saves on third-party cloud storage services. See the ScummVM documentation for details.

Video

Launcher options
Launcher options
In-game options
In-game options

Graphics feature State Notes
Widescreen resolution
640x480 (4:3) native resolution.[4]
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
Use ScummVM and disable the Fullscreen mode setting on the Graphics tab. Press Alt+ Enter in-game to toggle.
Borderless fullscreen windowed
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Use ScummVM and set the 3D Anti-aliasing setting on the Graphics tab to the desired level. This applies MSAA up to 16x.[5]
Vertical sync (Vsync)
Use ScummVM and enable the V-Sync in 3D Games setting on the Graphics tab.
60 FPS
120+ FPS
Capped at 92 FPS.
High dynamic range display (HDR)
See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Input

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Controller types

Audio

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Voice, Music, Sound Effects
Surround sound
Subtitles
Press F9 to toggle. Some subtitles mismatch audio.[citation needed]
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
French
German
Retail only; download for digital releases.
Italian
Retail only.
Polish
Retail and GOG.com only.
Russian
Offcial localization by "1C/Snowball". Retail only. Patch for digital release here.
Spanish
Retail only. Download: Text, videos and voices.
Swedish
Retail only.

Issues fixed

Movie and graphics problems

Issue with not being able to view the Bink-encoded movies or display a game window (black screen).
Versions prior to 1.61 do not have a separate Configure.exe utility. These versions have options presented when the game is launched instead.
Switch to High Performance power plan in the Control Panel (laptops only)[6]

Crash at Police Station

On some graphics cards, the game will crash upon entering the Police Station.
Fix: GOG.com version[7]
  1. Download PoliceStationCrashPatch.zip.
  2. Extract 01.Xarc from PoliceStationCrashPatch.zip and copy it to <path-to-game>\32\01, overwriting the existing file.

Game exit screen is white

Use DDrawCompat[8]
  1. Download DDrawCompat.
  2. Extract the contents from the .zip file into <path-to-game>\System.

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 5
DirectDraw 2
OpenGL
Use ScummVM and set the Game 3D Renderer setting on the Graphics tab to OpenGL or OpenGL with shaders.
Software renderer
Use ScummVM and set the Game 3D Renderer setting on the Graphics tab to Software. Note that the software renderer does not support modded assets.[9]
ExecutablePPC 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows
Use ScummVM for 64-bit support.
macOS (OS X)
Use ScummVM.
Linux
Use ScummVM.

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Cutscenes Bink Video, Smacker

Modifications

HD mod

Download link
The mod includes neural network upscaled backgrounds and sprites, as well as a redrawn user interface.
This mod uses ResidualVM framework to load new assets. The development of ResidualVM has been stopped, and the project's functionality is now part of ScummVM.[10] ResidualVM remains a working solution, but if any bugs occur when running the mod (e.g. incorrect word wrapping in menus with "..." replacing parts of labels), switch to ScummVM instead.

HD characters mod

HD characters mod Download link
This mod upscales most characters (the previously bugged Emma upscaled texture in the pack works correctly as from ScummVM v2.8.0 and above) and removes the mipmapping, creating a more crisp experience. It is meant to be played alongside the HD mod above.

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 95
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium 166 MHz
System memory (RAM) 32 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 300 MB
Video card (GPU) 640x480 SVGA high color (16-bit) video card
2 MB of VRAM


Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMDATA%, or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).
  2. 2.0 2.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/6310/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (6310) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References

  1. The Longest Journey - ScummVM :: Wiki - last accessed on May 2023
  2. scummvm/configure.engine at master · scummvm/residualvm - last accessed on 9 June 2023
  3. ScummVM - Oct 9, 2021: Twenty years ago today... - last accessed on 2021-10-10
    "With this release we announce support for Grim Fandango, The Longest Journey and Myst 3: Exile."
  4. ScummVM :: Wiki - The Longest Journey - last accessed on 2022-07-09
  5. ScummVM Documentation - Understanding the graphics settings - Anti-aliasing - last accessed on 2022-07-09
    "Multisampling Anti-Aliasing, or MSAA for short, was developed as a much faster alternative..."
  6. Can't view movies? - Steam Users' Forums (retrieved)
  7. Crash on entering Police Station (retrieved)
  8. GitHub - last accessed on May 2023
  9. Verified by User:Baronsmoki on 2022-07-09
    A ScummVM dialogue says this when trying to run The Longest Journey HD mod with the software renderer.
  10. TLJ: Random text is replaced by ellipses - ScummVM :: Forums - last accessed on 2023-06-04